If you have no real budget take a look at http://blender.org. It's free, open-source, incredibly powerful, fairly easy to integrate with After Effects, has a great render engine, and there is a very good user support group and set of tutorials right on the site. I use Blender to do a lot of designing and some rigging, but I don't really do Character animation.
If you have a decent budget then I suggest Cinema 4D. It's powerful, has some great features, is probably the easiest 3D software to integrate with After Effects, and there are a lot of really good tutorials right there on the Maxon site to get you started.
If you are completely new to 3D expect to spend about a week just figuring out the UI and how to move animate things. You can then easily spend another week learning about texturing and lighting. 3D animation is not quick, not easy, and will probably never be "push the button and magic happens." You will have to utilize the pencil test/ink and paint workflow. That means, rough out the shapes, rig them, make them move, then fine-tune the shapes and the blocking and the camera moves. When everything looks good your pencil test is done. It's time to do Ink and Paint, which is texturing, lighting, and all the rest that goes with completing a shot.
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